


Three Cigarettes

by myracingthoughts



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smoking, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:55:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23824177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myracingthoughts/pseuds/myracingthoughts
Summary: Sometimes you need to indulge in unsavoury coping rituals to soothe the beast.Early morning post-mission banter reveals more than either of them expected.4/29: Updated with bonus chapter.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 15
Collections: Bucky & Female Character Pairings





	1. Chapter 1

"I didn't know you smoked."

The voice was inquisitive, not judgemental, but worn and growling all the same. Ace tilted her ear toward the sound. She could have listened to that voice for hours, could have read her War and Peace, but she wasn't exactly in the position or frame of mind to ask for that right now.

The voice was also unexpected, coming from a rarely used door leading to a patio at the end of a hallway to nowhere in Midtown. Where she was looking for seclusion, apparently, this faceless stranger was looking for trouble — or an escape.

She knew precisely which of the two options it was as soon as the outdoor light illuminated the dark scruff on his chiselled face. Stepping into the light, he leaned against the smooth glass of the floor to ceiling windows, still in tac gear.

"I don't," she answered his non-existent question, leaving no room for follow up.

Bucky considered digging into her shoddy excuse for a reply, pointing out the irony. Still, he, of all people, knew that sometimes you needed to indulge in unsavoury coping rituals to soothe the beast.

She flicked the box in her hand, so a single cigarette stuck out of the pack. Motioning it toward him, he raised a brow and swiftly set it between his lips. With the flick of her lighter, a cup of her hand, and a brief inhale, she watched as his body language settled rough edges into smooth lines.

There was no judgement, no raised eyebrows. Just the quiet pitter-patter of the last of the earlier rain falling from the overhang onto the ground below. Avoiding eyes, they stared out into the night, decompressing.

It could have been for minutes, it could have been for hours.

But the silence was comfortable enough.

"Do you ever sleep?" her voice cut through the city's noise, bringing him back down to the balcony.

He wasn't sure if it was a jab at him standing outside with her at four in the morning, but, looking over at her, it didn't seem malicious. Her expression was neutral, inquisitive, a familiar state for the woman — at least as he knew her.

Which, if he was honest with himself, wasn't very well.

She didn't give much away when she was at work, and even for someone whose job it was to read people, he had a hard time with her. He wondered if she ever let up the act, that mask she had to put on at work. Did she own a pair of sweatpants? Or did she live in her tac gear even at home?

Some days he wondered if she ever even left the office.

"Sometimes. Probably not as much as most. It's harder after a mission."

She subconsciously tilted her head toward his gravelly voice, nodding in apparent agreement. Shaking the ash off her cigarette's end, he could see a spot of dried blood at her wrist. Not hers, he knew that. He resisted the urge to reach over and wipe it off, not wanting to ruin the conversation already made of more words than she'd ever said to him previously.

"You spend a lot of time out here?" he asked, wondering if she'd spotted him out here before.

It was a good spot. He'd spent many nights out here watching the rooftops and the traffic lights below change colours. On a good, clear night, he'd spend hours just reading up here.

"Enough."

He kicked a rock across the patio, the scuff echoing off the nearby walls, making more noise than her reply. Wondering whether he should go all-in on her or just walk away, he settled on the former, not knowing she was about done with being questioned.

"Do  _ you _ sleep at all?"

"Like a fucking baby," she quipped, but they both knew it was a lie.

She waited for a beat, watching him. He could see it from the corner of his eye, her eyes darting from his expression to his body language. He let her scrutinize and calculate as the gears turned in her head.

She took a sharp inhale before breathing out the words, "Do you want to tell me why you're really out here?"

He was caught off guard by the question, her tone slipping into something more along the lines of what he'd hear out in the field. Her voice was a hard-line, emotionless, and almost cruel, but he didn't take it personally. Instead, he took a long drag, vacillating between offering the truth or a half-truth in his head.

"Sam's worried about you," he settled on the truth. "I told him if you needed help, you'd ask."

She looked up at him, grey eyes in baby blues and searched his face, expression flat. The silence was deafening, and he didn't know whether she would take a swing at him, walk away or give him a piece of her mind.

But he was interested enough to stay and see where it went.

"So, you're here in case I ask?"

It was almost more of a statement than a question, skepticism dripping off her every word. He felt like he was looking a mirror of himself, could practically hear the words drip off his own tongue.

But he wasn't about to tell her that.

The last thing she wanted was pity if she was anything like he had been. He had nothing better to do right now, not like he could sleep anyway, so he decided to give her the rest of the story.

He shook his head and gave her a half-smile, "Nah, I just couldn't sleep. Thought you might be in the same boat."

A half-truth at best.

Even so, he could have sworn one of the corners of her lips quirked up, but it quickly settled back into a firm line across her face. She leaned back, smoke cloud pouring from her lips as she pulled her arms overhead in a long stretch.

"Well, I'm going to sleep like the dead tonight," she said decisively. "Finally got the bastard."

Bucky was pretty sure she was still lying but watched as her shoulders settled down from their hunch around her ears. It looked like she just lightened the weight of the world off herself as she took in a deep drag and blew out a smoke ring.

She looked at him expectantly, waiting for a question he wasn't going to ask.

"Steve told me some of it," he admitted to explain the silence, and she sighed.

"He tell you that asshole was the one who gave me this?" Her voice was level, leisurely almost.

Like she was telling a relatable anecdote at a bar among friends.

It was a stark contrast to the reality, which he realized when she unzipped the side of her collar as she spoke. She pulled down the fabric to reveal a jagged red line across the middle of her throat.

The throwaway comment caught him off-guard. If he was honest, he never really pegged her for a tragic backstory; he'd just always assumed she was naturally stoic. She was precisely the type of person Steve meant when he talked about soldiers.

Faceless numbers with no connections, no baggage in the field, no ulterior motives.

And, to her credit, she played the part well. Even now, at four in the morning on an upper-level patio at Stark Tower. She told him like it was any other scar on any other shmuck on any other day.

"Shouldn't you be celebrating then?" He said, trying to keep his voice just as level as hers.

The corners of her lips crept up again as if she was letting him in on a joke.

"That's what I'm doing."

They sat in silence for another beat; he wondered what she was getting at. She hadn't kicked him over the edge of the roof yet, he decided. Might as well see if he could get anything else out of her. At this point, it was for sport, as if his inability to read her brought his skillset into question.

He was just levelling the playing field.

"Looks more like a pity party to me," he sniped, trying his best to get some kind of reaction out of her.

No bite. He couldn't sense any sort of twitch in her body language.

Instead, her lips landed on a smirk, "I think we both know that death doesn't wipe the slate clean."

Now she was talking. Bucky widdled his cigarette down to the nub in his fingers, two puffs away from crushing it. He stared at the blonde, perfectly still in the moonlight as she too finished off her cancer stick. A perfectly formed smoke ring clouded the air before dissipating into the Manhattan skyline.

"You got a lot on your board?" he asked on the off chance that she wasn't going to bolt as soon as she finished her smoke.

She turned to face him but avoided his eyes, settling somewhere on his get-up instead.

"More than I'd like," she paused for a second, considering the company. "I assume you know the feeling."

He struggled to figure out the punchline to her line of fire. It almost felt like she was turning the tables on his little game. Was she trying to get something out of him? Was this some big game that he wasn't privy to?

Or was this her way of reaching out?

He could almost hear Sam's voice in his head, telling him to get her talking. What a fucking nuisance. He'd definitely been spending too much time with him lately, and he was getting tired of his noble habits and sensibilities rubbing off on him.

"How long have you been doing this?"

He could tell the open-ended question caught her off-guard, but he was pretty sure she wasn't about to bullshit him. This was about as truthful as she got, and probably the most she'd spoken outside of work in months. He kind of enjoyed the banter; it broke up the sirens and screams of the city below.

She was oddly comfortable sitting hundreds of yards in the air with a man who used to go by the Winter Soldier moniker, he mused. Not that it was really him.

She must have decided to play along, "To myself or been on the team?"

"Both."

"Too long to count. Before this, it was for Fury, before that, the military… I can't even remember being a civilian anymore. I don't think I was ever a kid," she sighed, flicking her cigarette butt off the edge of the building — a nasty but oddly satisfying habit. "Long story short, not as long as you."

He wasn't about to ask her about her military life. It was an untold rule of his that, all things considered, some baggage should stay in the past. He out of anyone knew just how raw and wretched war could be and the things a person had to do to survive.

"Doesn't make it any less shitty," he said gruffly. "I didn't sign up to be in the sob story Olympics. Everyone goes through shit; it doesn't make anyone else's less valid."

She chuckled, though it didn't reach her eyes, "You sound like a walking talking therapy session."

"Better than the miserable old bastard I was," he countered.

"One out of three ain't bad," she quipped. "I'll let you guess which."

He rolled his eyes but couldn't stop the huff of laughter from leaving his chest.

"That mouth's going to get you into trouble one of these days," Bucky warned, verging on a joke that didn't quite land.

She took the bait with a twinkle, "Who says it hasn't already?"

He walked towards her, setting his hand on the wall just above her shoulder and leaned forwards. She could smell the smoke on his breath and could see herself reflected in those clear blue eyes. They stood there for seconds, but it felt like years.

Her stomach clenched, not out of nerves, but out of something unfamiliar.

She could have paid him to keep talking, to keep hearing that rumble in his chest when he laughed — she wanted to know what it felt like. What the stubble on his cheek felt like against hers.

But these were dangerous thoughts, ones she wasn't allowed to give much credence.

Instead, they stood at an impasse, and he was about to take the high road.

But, to Ace, it felt like a low blow.

"Thanks for the smoke."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This little thing got a lot more attention than I thought it would.
> 
> As a thank you, here's another part.
> 
> I have a couple more of these short stories floating around my brain, so if there's a pairing or character you'd like to see, drop me a line in the comments, my inbox or my [tumblr](https://pasmonblog.tumblr.com/ask).

“Heads up.”

There he went with that voice again. That rumble in his chest, sending shivers up her spine in hundred-degree weather. It was bound to be the death of her.

Ace caught the white cigarette pack before it hit her chest, looking up at the piercing blue eyes staring intently at her from under a baseball cap. James Buchanan Barnes could make midday in the desert feel like a perfectly breezy full moon night between those and his voice.

“You following me now, Barnes?” she joked, canines flashing in the fiery August sun.

Her sun-bleached hair was twisted into a messy bun sticking in all directions out of the back of a well-worn maroon Harvard ball cap. Loose threads were coming out from the white embroidery, fading around the edges and snap. He faintly wondered whether she had actually been a student there or if it was just part of her cover outfit.

He’d add it to the list of things he didn’t know about it.

Things he intended to find out.

For now, he was still trying to piece together the puzzle. And with nothing but heat, sand and time on their hands, it was the only thing capturing his attention at the moment.

“Nowhere else to be. Plus, you were starting to look like you needed ’em,” he groused.

He hunkered down on the porch next to her, both backs against the wall just below the remote cabin’s picture window. Arizona in the summer wasn’t his favourite place to haunt, somewhere just below Russian winters, but it wasn’t the worst gig to get stuck on.

He set down the two water bottles he’d also purchased from the nearby gas station and handed one to her. She immediately wedged it between the back of her neck and the wall, leaning back as her face smoothed into stillness, complete relaxation etched between her eyebrows.

She looked like she could have fallen asleep, but he knew she was more alert than ever.

“Ain’t fuck all to do except wait,” she mused, tearing into the cigarette pack wrapper with one swipe without opening her eyes and overturning it to produce a single stick. “Beauty of recon.”

The cigarette was in her mouth before she finished her sentiment. She dug through her jean pocket for her lighter while flicking the pack his way as an offering, one eye peeking open to watch him. Bucky declined with a wave of his hand, kicking out his right leg, so it hung off the edge of the porch.

The ease this woman had on missions was admirable, and it was rubbing off on him. She was known for steady hands in any situation; in fact, he didn’t think he’d ever witnessed her hesitate on a shot.

Aim. Breathe. Hold. Squeeze. Follow through.

It was always consistent, like clockwork.

Even sitting here in the middle of the day, he felt comfortable. Comfortable enough to not have his hand itching for his gun tucked into the back of his pants. His hips brushed hers, denim on denim in the summer heat.

They were well-covered by shade on the patio, but something burned in him.

He watched her sink into the cool plastic, a faint smile on her lips. A bandana wrapped around her neck, covering scars and providing respite from the blowing sand, she could have looked like any suburban twenty-something seeking adventure in the desert.

But, Bucky had been around mercs long enough to know it was inevitably the ones you’d never pick off the street that always made the best shooters. Like Barton, Ace was a bright-eyed blonde, average American when she needed to be. And like Barton, she was a hell of a shot, no matter the situation.

“You takin’ mental notes up there, Barnes?” she sniped as she cracked open her eyes, eyebrow disappearing under her hat’s brim.

He flashed her a smirk, not dignifying the accusation with a response. Even if it was true.

Today they were supposed to be a pair of regular ol’ tourists…hiking… in the middle of the goddamn desert heat.

He cringed.

No one said their cover had to be believable, and frankly, they never got to giving cover half the time, but Jesus Christ was he was going to give Sam a piece of his mind on this one.

“You’re usually more talkative than this.”

Her tone slipped into cheek as she smirked. It was the same expression he’d come to recognize from their outdoor lamp lit chat. It’d been a few weeks since their last run-in at the Tower, and after her mandated leave due to the previous mission, this was her first official one back.

So, of course, SHIELD would make sure it was a boring one. With a babysitter.

He was confident the undertone wasn’t lost on her. She’d look content as a clam on this whirlwind waste of time mission to anyone else, but her veneer was starting to chip away. The blonde, usually so good under pressure, was a little antsy, he could tell. Her only give away was her hands, restless, waiting and tapping against the worn wood beneath them.

He decided to kick off their little game.

“Alright, I’ll bite. Where are you from, Ace?”

He settled on a softball, knowing she was expecting him to play along. After all, she had said he was too quiet.

“Can’t place the accent, hm? What if I told you Kentucky?” she gave a mischievous smirk, and all he could see was the dimple in her left cheek.

Had that always been there?

“I’d tell you I knew you were bullshitting,” he shot back, a little gruffer than he meant to.

Flicking her lighter on and off, he could see the cogs turning behind her eyes. She wasn’t espionage, that was for sure — her ticks were on full display for the world to see, when it was looking. Bucky observed a lot of them just on the two-hour drive out of Tucson.

Those little moments when the restlessness took hold exposed truths that she’d never say out loud.

Her biggest tell was she was uncomfortable with silence in one-on-ones. In groups, she could slip into the background and just dive into her work, but she knew she was being watched as a pair. Assessed. Judged. And that bothered her.

Probably why Wilson had chosen a duo op to transition her back into the field.

“Just outside Nashville,” she admitted before shooting back, “A bit of a hike from Brooklyn.”

He nodded as she stretched out her legs in front of her, giving a little groan. His story was public knowledge, after all. It was a bit weird to know that somewhere, in some elementary school textbook, a good chunk of his biography was (likely) mis-penned for a bunch of kids to study.

His thoughts started to drift. They’d only been here a few hours, and he was already sitting there with a restless trigger finger.

The sun was lower in the sky now, air cooling the air around them. The driveway had been empty for hours, maybe two cars rolling through the sparsely populated part of town they were holed up in.

“You ever think about quitting?”

Bucky pitched a rock over the balcony’s railing, watching as it skittered across the asphalt of the driveway, before returning his attention over to her. He watched as her jaw tensed, grinding her teeth a little at the vague question.

“Smoking or this gig?” She flashed an artificial smile but already knew the answer. “I don’t think I could get out of it at this point.”

She ashed her cigarette on the wood below her and stashed it in her pocket. At least she had the good sense not to leave DNA hanging around — he’d been paired with dumber agents.

“Me neither.”

She nodded knowingly, “I wake up every day knowing this job’s going to kill me one day. Faster than cigarettes.”

She prosed like it was her ultimate truth, the hill she’d die on, and the life she chose. It was probably the most serious he’d seen her, and he had to double-take to make sure she wasn’t going to crack it into some off-colour joke.

But the punchline never came.

Cracking open the water bottle, long warm, she took a couple of sips and sighed. As if she had just released the biggest worry on her mind, her body slumped further against the wall behind her.

“That’s depressing,” he challenged.

She countered with a too-comfortable smile, “That’s life.”

They sat there in silence for probably an hour, until it was too dark to see anything beyond the streetlamps dotting the horizon. His head snapped over to his partner at the sound of rustling. She shot a glance at her phone before setting a hand to the ground and pushing herself up.

“We should get some sleep before we head out,” she explained, motioning towards the door.

Right, he had the key. Fishing the gold keyring out of his back pocket, he tossed it to her. Unlocking the door, she didn’t even bother with the lights. They could both see well enough in the dark.

The room, the only one aside from the bathroom in the whole structure, was something out of the 1970s. Mismatched patterns, prints and fabrics made up a garish patchwork. A queen-sized bed sat in the living room, across from the kitchen, not far from a couch that had seen better days.

Nowadays, they’d call it ‘open concept,’ but Bucky knew it as growing up poor.

He pulled back the yellowing lace curtains and peered out the front window as she rifled through the kitchen cabinets.

“I don’t think anyone followed us, Barnes,” she declared over the jingle of the cutlery drawer. “It’s been hours.”

He nodded, knowing it was true. Shaking out his hands and righting the curtain, he was still a little antsy, not used to being stuck on boring recon missions. He plopped himself on the couch, collecting the musty decorative pillows and piling them under his head.

Before he could kick off his boots, Ace’s voice carried across the room.

“Oh, don’t give me that chivalrous bullshit.”

There was a little self-righteous sting to her tone. Arms crossed, and eyes rolling as he looked back at her with raised eyebrows.

“We’re both adults. Can’t be any grosser than either of our time in the barracks,” she chided, motioning toward the bed.

“You’re just trying to get me into bed with you,” he joked.

But he was about halfway sure it was the truth.

He flashed her a grin he’d hope she’d return if only to see that dimple again.

But she was already stripped down to her tank top and a pair of cotton shorts, staring at him with what could only be indifference to the untrained eye. He could see her eyes drifting though, observing as he crossed the room.

“Barnes, you’re the dog to my car. You chase and chase, but you don’t know what you’d do if you actually caught me.”

He chuckled roughly and lost her gaze only for a moment as he pulled his shirt over his head, but he could guess where it landed.

Boots tucked under the bed, she slipped under the covers on the side furthest from the door, turning to face the center of the bed. The muscles on his back rippled with every movement as he sat on the bed’s edge, hypnotizing her in the near-dark. There was only the soft glow of a streetlight coming through the gauzy curtains.

The world in black and white.

She watched as he shimmied out of his jeans, setting them down on the floor below and turned on his side to face her. They lay there for a couple of minutes, eyes darting side to side as they waited for the first one to crack.

Barnes’ growl broke the silence.

“I know  _ exactly _ what I’d do if I caught you.”

“Sure yo—” his lips were on hers before she could finish the sarcastic remark.

Her brain short-circuited at the contact, muscles jolting into autopilot and clawing at his back. The kiss was every emotion surging through her head at once; frantic, anxious and needy. Before she could even process what was happening, it was over, his hand that had been cupping her face retracted, and she was left to catch her breath.

He pulled back, tracking her response.

It felt like a loss, the lack of stubble grazing her mouth, the cold air hitting the warmth on her cheek that his hand left behind. Fingertips ghosted across his ribs, exploring the lines of his muscles, but her eyes stayed at his.

He was just about to make an excuse, she could tell. That old-school chivalry, coupled with the tough-guy facade she thought already torn down, was getting in his own way. The words were stuck in his throat; he still couldn’t get a read on her, and he was suddenly apologetic.

“You can tell me if I’m off-base here—” but she was already burrowing her fingers into his hair, pulling him tightly against her to shut him up.

His body moulded to hers, engulfing her in his arms. Tongues slipping across lips, asking for permission, teeth nibbling and pulling, and their hands roamed. Calloused skin met the soft scars on her back and traced the raised edges absentmindedly.

But shame was left at the door, neither of them paying mind to anything but the sensations and friction beneath the sheets.

Neither of them was getting any sleep tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> All comments and kudos are loved and cherished.  
> You can also find me on [tumblr](https://pasmonblog.tumblr.com/), where I post a lot of comic book content, work updates, and behind-the-scenes commentary.


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